Stroh violin
Encyclopedia
Stroh violin, Strohviol, or Strohviol, is a trade name for a horn-violin, or violinophone—a violin
that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horn
s rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an 'electrical engineer' in London, who patented it in 1899. The Stroh violin is also closely related to other horned violins using a mica
sheet-resonating diaphragm, known as phonofiddle
s.
In the present day, many types of horn-violin exist, especially in the Balkans.
ic recording. As regular violins recorded poorly with the old acoustic-mechanical recording method, Stroh violins were common in recording studio
s, but became rarer after record companies switched to the new electric microphone
recording technology in the second half of the 1920s. While the Stroh produces significantly more volume, it does this at the expense of tone, offering a sound that is harsher and more grating than a standard violin. On early records the Stroh violin can be recognized by its characteristically thin whining tone.
The Stroh violin was an expensive instrument: in 1911 it was offered by the London dealers Barnes & Mullins for nine guineas (£9.45, then equal to $37.80) or twelve guineas (£12.60 / $50.40) at a time when a reasonable factory violin could be had for two guineas. It was listed as being especially suitable for use in small theaters and music-halls. There was also a Stroh viola
.
, Carla Kihlstedt
, Thomas Newman
, Bat For Lashes
A Hawk and A Hacksaw
http://ahawkandahacksaw.net/assets/images/photos/IMG_7815.JPG and Eric Gorfain
http://blog.timesunion.com/reviews/sam-phillips-wamc-studio-91408/490/ continue to use the Stroh violin for its distinctive sound. Shakira
featured a Strohviol on her 2010/11 The Sun Comes Out World Tour
, with multi-instrumentalist
Una Palliser
playing it on some songs. Pinky Weitzman plays the Stroh violin for various New York
experimental ensembles, including her own project (Not Waving But Drowning), as well as Flare
, LD & the New Criticism
, and as part of the onstage ensemble for Stephin Merritt
's My Life as a Fairy Tale.
The Stroh violin is used in folk music of the Bihor region
of Romania
. Famous practitioners of this music style include fiddler Gheorghe Rada, singers Florica Bradu, Florica Ungur, Florica Duma, Leontin Ciucur, Cornel Borza, Vasile Iova, Maria Haiduc, Viorica Flintasu, and renowned folk ensembles Crisana or Rapsozii Zarandului. In 1920s Buenos Aires
, Julio de Caro
, a renowned Tango
orchestra director and violinist, used it in his live performances, and was called violín-corneta (cornet violin) by the locals.
n horn-violin is similar to the Stroh violin. It was built through the 20th century. It has the same length as the Stroh violin, but its horn is narrower and yields a more directional sound. The structure of the instrument is based on the element of an old-fashioned gramophone. Amateurs or small workshops could easily build it and, perhaps for that reason, many variants exist in Eastern Europe.
The vibrations of the strings and bridge are transmitted by a thin rod to the membrane of the gramophone-element. The membrane transforms these vibrations into sound waves, which are amplified by the horn or beaker.
The horn-violin is harder to play than a normal violin because the reaction of the bow on the strings is less flexible, and the instrument's weight is less evenly distributed. This causes an imbalance on the shoulder.
The instrument is still used in Romanian folk-music for playing horas
and doinas, and mixes well with the characteristic sound of the pan-flute. It is generally used sparsely as the grating tone can irritate after a while. Instruments like the Stroh violin and other types of horn-violin remain a curiosity; they are quite rare in the orchestra.
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horn
Horn (acoustic)
A horn is a tapered sound guide designed to provide an acoustic impedance match between a sound source and free air. This has the effect of maximizing the efficiency with which sound waves from the particular source are transferred to the air...
s rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an 'electrical engineer' in London, who patented it in 1899. The Stroh violin is also closely related to other horned violins using a mica
Mica
The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition...
sheet-resonating diaphragm, known as phonofiddle
Phonofiddle
A phonofiddle is a class of stringed musical instruments that are played with a bow and use a phonograph type reproducer as a voice-box.The sound producing diaphragm may be a metal cone as in the Stroh violin or a mica sheet as in the instruments made by A. T. Howson, London and the Stroviols...
s.
In the present day, many types of horn-violin exist, especially in the Balkans.
Description and background
Stroh violins are much louder than a standard wooden violin, and its directional projection of sound made it particularly useful in the early days of phonographPhonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
ic recording. As regular violins recorded poorly with the old acoustic-mechanical recording method, Stroh violins were common in recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
s, but became rarer after record companies switched to the new electric microphone
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
recording technology in the second half of the 1920s. While the Stroh produces significantly more volume, it does this at the expense of tone, offering a sound that is harsher and more grating than a standard violin. On early records the Stroh violin can be recognized by its characteristically thin whining tone.
The Stroh violin was an expensive instrument: in 1911 it was offered by the London dealers Barnes & Mullins for nine guineas (£9.45, then equal to $37.80) or twelve guineas (£12.60 / $50.40) at a time when a reasonable factory violin could be had for two guineas. It was listed as being especially suitable for use in small theaters and music-halls. There was also a Stroh viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
.
Current usage
A number of musicians, including Tom WaitsTom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt
Carla Kihlstedt is an American violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist from Lancaster, Pennsylvania currently living in Oakland, California....
, Thomas Newman
Thomas Newman
Thomas Montgomery Newman is an American composer and conductor, best known for his many film scores. He is one of the more respected and recognized composers for modern film and has scored over fifty feature films in a career which spans nearly three decades.Newman has received a total of ten...
, Bat For Lashes
Bat for Lashes
Natasha Khan , also known by her stage name Bat for Lashes, is an English musician. She sings and plays the piano, bass, guitar, harpsichord and the autoharp....
A Hawk and A Hacksaw
A Hawk and a Hacksaw
A Hawk and a Hacksaw is a band from Albuquerque, New Mexico, currently signed to L.M. Dupli-cation. The band consists of accordionist Jeremy Barnes, who was previously the drummer for Neutral Milk Hotel and Bablicon, and violinist Heather Trost...
http://ahawkandahacksaw.net/assets/images/photos/IMG_7815.JPG and Eric Gorfain
Eric Gorfain
Eric Gorfain is an American violinist and leader of The Section Quartet.He has been classically trained since the age of four and later participated in orchestras throughout his studies at UCLA, where he became symphony concertmaster....
http://blog.timesunion.com/reviews/sam-phillips-wamc-studio-91408/490/ continue to use the Stroh violin for its distinctive sound. Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...
featured a Strohviol on her 2010/11 The Sun Comes Out World Tour
The Sun Comes Out World Tour
The Sun Comes Out World Tour is the fifth concert tour by Colombian singer-songwriter, Shakira. The tour is in support of her sixth and seventh studio albums, She Wolf and Sale El Sol. The tour will reach the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa...
, with multi-instrumentalist
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
Una Palliser
Una Palliser
Úna Palliser is an Irish born, London based violinist, violist, singer and multi-instrumentalist who as well as being classically trained, is recognised for her proficiency in many musical genres, including rock, balkan, pop, and Irish folk...
playing it on some songs. Pinky Weitzman plays the Stroh violin for various New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
experimental ensembles, including her own project (Not Waving But Drowning), as well as Flare
Flare Acoustic Arts League
Flare Acoustic Arts League — a.k.a. Flare — is an experimental pop band formed by guitarist Damian Costilla and singer LD Beghtol in New York in 1996.-History:...
, LD & the New Criticism
LD & the New Criticism
LD & the New Criticism was an American experimental pop bandformed by songwriter/producer LD Beghtol. Designed by Beghtol to showcase his less dour songwriting efforts—and to be a highly portable, essentially 'live band,' unlike his other studio-based projects Flare and moth wranglers—the outfit...
, and as part of the onstage ensemble for Stephin Merritt
Stephin Merritt
Stephin Merritt is an American singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles , best known as the principal singer and songwriter in the band The Magnetic Fields...
's My Life as a Fairy Tale.
The Stroh violin is used in folk music of the Bihor region
Biharia Euroregion
Biharia euroregion is an euroregion located in Romania and Hungary.-Administration:*Biharia euroregion is composed of:**Bihor County in **Hajdú-Bihar County in *The administrative center is Oradea which is the largest city of the euroregion....
of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. Famous practitioners of this music style include fiddler Gheorghe Rada, singers Florica Bradu, Florica Ungur, Florica Duma, Leontin Ciucur, Cornel Borza, Vasile Iova, Maria Haiduc, Viorica Flintasu, and renowned folk ensembles Crisana or Rapsozii Zarandului. In 1920s Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Julio de Caro
Julio de Caro
Julio de Caro was an Argentine composer, musician and conductor prominent in the Tango genre.-Life and work:...
, a renowned Tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
orchestra director and violinist, used it in his live performances, and was called violín-corneta (cornet violin) by the locals.
Romanian horn-violin
The RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n horn-violin is similar to the Stroh violin. It was built through the 20th century. It has the same length as the Stroh violin, but its horn is narrower and yields a more directional sound. The structure of the instrument is based on the element of an old-fashioned gramophone. Amateurs or small workshops could easily build it and, perhaps for that reason, many variants exist in Eastern Europe.
The vibrations of the strings and bridge are transmitted by a thin rod to the membrane of the gramophone-element. The membrane transforms these vibrations into sound waves, which are amplified by the horn or beaker.
The horn-violin is harder to play than a normal violin because the reaction of the bow on the strings is less flexible, and the instrument's weight is less evenly distributed. This causes an imbalance on the shoulder.
The instrument is still used in Romanian folk-music for playing horas
Horas
Horas is the traditional greeting of the Batak Toba, Simalungun and Mandailing peoples, and the best-known word in the Batak languages.In addition to being a greeting, it can also be used to express 'good health' and 'goodbye'....
and doinas, and mixes well with the characteristic sound of the pan-flute. It is generally used sparsely as the grating tone can irritate after a while. Instruments like the Stroh violin and other types of horn-violin remain a curiosity; they are quite rare in the orchestra.
External links
- Smithsonian Institution HistoryWired article about the Stroh violin (includes photos)
- Digital Violin - Article considering the context of Stroh and other related Horn Violins
- YouTube Video - Louise played on the Stroh Fiddle (Violin) by Corwin Zekley
- Video - Siperkov plays the horn-violin
- The violinophone is one of the interesting Instruments of Amazonas